Return to Atlantis: A Novel (20 page)

The silence told her that her theory had not been well received. “No!” barked Belardinelli at last. “It is not possible. Every single member of the Brotherhood is completely loyal to the cause!”

“You don’t
have
a cause anymore! Atlantis has been discovered, the Frosts and their followers are dead, the Brotherhood’s been exposed—and it’s now got the UN and several governments watching over it. Maybe someone decided it was time to get out, and thought that selling secrets would be the best way to set up a retirement fund.”

“It is … hard to believe,” said Popadopoulos slowly.
“Agostino is right—loyalty to the Brotherhood is very important.”

“And besides,” said Belardinelli, “there are only three people who know the full contents of the archives: myself, Nicholas, and Paolo.” He crossed his arms as if that settled the argument.

“Well, that narrows the list of suspects, doesn’t it?” Nina said. As the three men exchanged glances, she looked up at the shelf from which the preserved parchment had been taken. “Huh.”

“What is it?” asked Popadopoulos.

She pointed to the left of the empty spot. “That’s Mr. Belardinelli’s handprint there in the dust.”

“Yes? So?” Belardinelli snapped. “I made it when I took down the book. You saw me do it.”

“So whose is that on the other side?” She indicated another mark in the gray layer.

“You never touched that part of the shelf, Agostino,” said Popadopoulos, moving for a better look. “But someone has—and recently. There is hardly any new dust.”

Nina turned to Belardinelli. “Are you right-handed?”

“Yes,” he said, puzzled and angry. “What has that to do with anything?”

“When you climbed up, you used your left hand for support while you pulled the book out with your right hand—your stronger hand. But that mark was made by someone’s right hand … meaning they moved the book with their left.”

“I am right-handed,” Popadopoulos told her.

“Yeah, I thought you would be.” Now she faced Agnelli. “The computer was set up for someone left-handed. And Mr. Belardinelli here said he never uses it, so that only leaves you.” Prickles of sweat blossomed across his broad face even in the climate-controlled cool of the catacomb. “
You’re
left-handed, Mr. Agnelli. And you knew where the parchment was without having to check—and the ladder was even right here.” She looked back at the other men. “How does that sound?”

Their faces betrayed shock—which, she quickly realized, was far greater than her deduction deserved. She turned to Agnelli once more.

And froze. “Oh, crap.”

The young Italian was pointing a gun at her.

A
gnelli was shaking, the small silver automatic trembling in his hand, but his index finger was tight around the trigger. “D-don’t move,” he stammered.

A chilling fear coursed through Nina. In his frightened, agitated state, Agnelli might shoot her by accident. “Okay, let’s, ah, let’s all stay calm, huh? Nobody wants to get shot. I have been before, and I didn’t like it.”

“Paolo!” exclaimed Belardinelli. “What is this?”

“I—I am sorry,” said the sweating Agnelli. “I needed the money, and they gave me fifty thousand euros for a picture of the parchment. Only that one page! I didn’t give them anything else. I didn’t betray the Brotherhood.”

“And yet you are pointing a gun at us,” Popadopoulos said in an acid tone.

“Why were you even carrying a gun?” Nina asked. “Expecting to get caught, were you?”

“Shut up!” cried Agnelli, almost hyperventilating. “Everyone shut up! Move back.”

Nina willingly retreated a couple of steps, as did Popadopoulos, but Belardinelli stood his ground. “What are you going to do, Paolo? Kill us? Is that how you
repay the Brotherhood for everything it has given you? Is that how you repay
me
?”

“No, no, I—I don’t want to hurt anyone, I just want to get out of here,” said Agnelli, wide-eyed. “Please, Agostino, move back!”

Instead, Belardinelli held out his hand. “Give me the gun, Paolo.” He stepped forward. “We can—”

The gunshot was almost deafening in the confined space.

Belardinelli staggered, clutching feebly at his chest. He looked up at the younger man, face shocked and hurt … then slowly crumpled to the floor. Agnelli’s own features conveyed equal disbelief.

Silence and stillness for a moment. Then Popadopoulos fled down the tunnel.

The gun roared again. The Greek crashed against a wall, knocking items from a loculus.

Agnelli brought the gun back around to Nina—

She too was moving—but not running. Instead, she swept up the little stepladder and flung it at him. He reeled, pulling the trigger, but the bullet went well wide of its target.

Now
Nina ran, leaping over the moaning Popadopoulos and sprinting down the tunnel. Behind her, Agnelli’s shout warned her that his fear had turned to anger.

She threw herself down a curving side passage as Agnelli fired again. Where it led she had no idea, but she had no choice except to follow it.

The Italian set off in pursuit. He reached the side passage, turned—

And stopped in momentary surprise. The tunnel was in near darkness.

Still running, Nina passed beneath another lightbulb and, fist clenching her jacket’s cuff, reached up to smash it. Even with the material protecting her hand, she still winced as a glass splinter stabbed into the flesh.

But that pain was infinitely preferable to the burning hammer blow of a bullet. She was in Agnelli’s domain,
the Italian knowing every twist and turn of the tunnels. Her only hope of escape was to confuse him long enough for her to get past and make a dash for the elevator.

The passage twisted around to a four-way intersection. She carried on straight ahead, breaking another light—then doubled back into the left tunnel. A boxy dehumidifier grumbled away on the floor; she jinked past it and continued on, straining to pick out Agnelli’s pounding footsteps over the machine’s noise. How close was he?

Too close, almost at the intersection.

She flattened herself into the shadows of another arcosolium as Agnelli reached the junction. He glanced to each side before continuing ahead into the darkened tunnel. Nina held her breath. His steps faded—but was it because he was getting farther away, or just that he was slowing?

It was hard to be sure over the dehumidifier’s thrum. She leaned out from her cover and looked back. Had her ruse worked? If she made a dash for the intersection, she might have a clear run to the entrance—or she might find herself face-to-face with Agnelli if he had realized her deception.

The longer she stayed in the catacomb, the greater her chances of her being cornered. She had to risk going back. She moved out of the shadows—

Agnelli reappeared at the junction.

Nina scrambled to reverse direction as he saw her. The gun snapped up, but in his haste he fired without aiming, the shot chipping the ancient stone wall several feet short. By the time reason overcame panic and he raised the automatic higher to look down its sights, she had rounded another corner.

More broken bulbs tinkled into the growing darkness as she ran through the archive’s ancient tunnels. The passage ahead split into two. On impulse she went left, smashing another light. She was outpacing the overweight Italian, the tunnel’s turns preventing him from
lining up another shot, but if she found herself in a dead end he would catch up very quickly.

Or not. It sounded as though he were slowing down. He might be tiring … but Nina somehow knew that wasn’t the case. Dread rose inside her. He had stopped running because he no longer needed to.

She had nowhere left to go.

Even with that frightening knowledge, she kept moving, destroying more bulbs. The passage bent around, another light ahead. She reached up to break it—

And saw the end of the tunnel as it opened into a chamber lined with burial niches, all packed with ancient records. A cool breeze from an air conditioner wafted around her as she skidded to a halt.

No way out.

And no hiding places either. The room was cramped enough for Agnelli to find her even in the dark. She would have no choice but to fight—against a much larger and heavier foe armed with a gun. Despite having been taught the basics of unarmed combat by Eddie, she didn’t like the odds.

But it was that or stand there and wait to be shot. She was about to hit the bulb when an idea came to her.

The air conditioner. Its power cord snaked back down the tunnel …

Nina burned its position into her mind—then smashed the final light.

Agnelli blinked as the passage ahead went completely dark. He slowed to a cautious walk. The only remaining illumination was a dim glow from far behind him, and even that would be gone when he rounded the next bend.

But he knew exactly what lay ahead. “You can’t hide from me!” he called, growing more confident despite the adrenaline making the blood hiss in his ears. “And—and I can tell the Brotherhood that you shot everyone
before I stopped you. They’ll believe me—they know you hate us!”

“You’ve got to find me first,” came an echoing voice from the end of the tunnel. “You fat fuck!” it added, New York accent becoming more pronounced.

Agnelli’s face tightened with pricked pride. She was
insulting
him? “Give up and—and I’ll make it quick for you,” he said, dredging up half-remembered dialogue from some movie in an attempt to sound more threatening.

It didn’t work. “You couldn’t be quick if you tried, you fucking greaseball! Come on, get your fat ass down here—if it’ll squeeze through the door!”

Anger rising over his anxiety, Agnelli started to jog, right hand stretched out to feel his way along the tunnel wall as he held the gun at the ready in his left. There was no way she could slip past him in the passage, so she would be trapped in the end chamber. He went around the last turn, total darkness enshrouding him. Now he’d show her that he had more muscle than fat—

Something snagged around his ankles—and he went flying over the makeshift trip wire Nina had made from the air conditioner’s power cable, slamming down face-first in the small room. Before he could recover a foot drove into his side, followed by another kick that caught his elbow. He yelled, then panic returned as he realized he had let go of the gun.

Nina heard the clatter of metal on the floor. Run while Agnelli was down, or go for the gun and turn the tables? She chose the latter, crouching and fumbling in the blackness. Stone and dirt were all she felt. She heard the Italian also groping blindly for his fallen weapon. Where was the damn thing?

Cold, angular steel. She grabbed the gun, trying to flip it around to get a proper hold—

Agnelli gripped her wrist.

He was too strong for her to pull free, dragging her toward him. She lashed out with her other hand, hitting
the side of his face, but before she could go for his eyes he bashed her hand against the floor.

She gasped in pain. Agnelli pounded her hand down again, harder. The pistol jolted loose and clacked onto the stone. The Italian batted savagely at her body with his other arm, then scrambled for the weapon—

A bell sounded, its clamor echoing through the catacomb.

Agnelli let out a gasp of horror as he realized what it meant. The wounded Popadopoulos must have managed to drag himself to the archive entrance and set off the alarm. More members of the Brotherhood would be on their way—and the old man would tell them everything.

He abandoned the gun and leapt back to his feet, scrambling down the tunnel. Ribs aching where he had hit her, Nina found the pistol in the blackness, then quickly followed the panicked Italian.

She soon reached the lit junction and paused, listening. Agnelli was heading deeper into the tunnels. She ran after him. Where was he going?

Another exit, maybe one even Belardinelli didn’t know about. The old man had said that Agnelli spent a lot of time exploring the catacombs.

The bell faded as she moved farther into the maze. She noticed that some passages were unlit, their loculi empty. Not even the Brotherhood’s vast collection of stolen records could fill the space donated to them. But the running man was following the lights, with a specific destination in mind …

She slowed sharply as she realized she could no longer hear Agnelli’s steps. But he couldn’t be far away; she had been gaining on the lumbering youth. Cautious, gun raised, Nina advanced. There was a room ahead, a larger chamber than any she had seen so far—and straining sounds of movement came from it.

A glance through the entrance simultaneously told her the room’s purpose and excited her aesthetic and archaeological
sensibilities. It was a crypt; not the dank Gothic tomb of vampire lore, but a high-ceilinged space decorated with elaborately carved pilaster columns and painted friezes, tiers of large burial nooks built for the members of an entire family around the walls.

But no Agnelli.

Confused, she warily entered. The crypt was lit by only a single bulb above the entrance, the farthest corners in shadow. She aimed the gun at each in turn, but still saw no sign of the Italian—until a noise from above made her whip the weapon up.